Conventionally, in a manufacturing process of, for example, a semiconductor integrated circuit or a liquid crystal display device, various kinds of apparatuses, such as an exposure apparatus or an inspection apparatus, carry out various kinds of processing of an object, such as a semiconductor wafer and a glass substrate. These apparatuses include an electrostatic chuck that adsorbs the object when the object is subject to the processing.
For example, Patent Document 1 describes an electrostatic chuck including a dielectric body (base body) having an adsorbing surface (first surface) with a convex-shaped pin (protruding surface part) and a concave part (bottom surface).
With the electrostatic chuck, the protruding surface part supports an object, thus making it possible to decrease a contact area between the electrostatic chuck and the object. This contributes to reducing contamination of the object due to particles attached to the electrostatic chuck.